a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Randy Rigby**On Greg Miller: Greg is a very thoughtful, and, and very kind, and, and, and the acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree, right? … [The Millers] are just wonderful people.

**Escaping November unscathed with a record of .500 is good news…* I’m very pleased with where we’re at…We have a very tough schedule. A, a young team of, and a lot of, even with our veterans, we have a team young in not having a lot of experience playing together with all, you know, some of the changes we’ve made. And so I think we’ve done a very good job of, of kinda progressing to this point. We still got work, a lot of work in front of us, but I’m very happy with where we’re at right now.

I would’ve liked, Monday night’s game [against the Clippers], I would’ve liked to have seen a different outcome, but you know what? That’s sports and that’s life, and it is the NBA. And you’re, you know what? You’re going to lose some of those, you’re going to get some of those.

* If this sounds familiar, it’s because Spencer Checketts asked the exact same question, complete with “unscathed,” to Sidney Lowe one day earlier.

**On Derrick Favors’ plantar fasciitis: You know what, I’ve done some research on it recently and it doesn’t scare me.

Dennis Lindsey**On Jerry Sloan: He’s clearly a great man, and his image will be here for a long time, you know, if I have anything to do with it.

**On the Jazz’s frontcourt “logjam”: There’s a lot of different paths of, you know, investing in this iteration of the team, of being patient and organic, you know, with what we’ve built here so far. And so, we can kind of react to the results, you know. It’s our jobs to listen. You know, we’ve told the players, you know, we can’t avoid the NBA reality, but the fact remains is, is all four of those guys have been very professional…

But it’s a little bit like raising a child, your child, with those two young guys. Give them too much too soon, you get some entitlement. You raise a spoiled brat. And so, I think, you know, nature’s kind of taken its course here, and we have a lot of good options, you know, and clearly we’re eventually gonna have to choose, choose, you know, one.

**On the Jazz’s cap space: You know, “cap space doesn’t win you games” was, I think, what [Jerry Sloan] said, and it’s true. But…we want to pay market value or we want to pay, you know, less than market value and have real value in players…It took a lot of patience and diligence and sometimes pain to, you know, to build this threshold that Kevin [O’Connor]’s built. So let’s be real patient with it unless there’s a reason why to be bold.

**On Gordon Hayward: I’d start with his mindset and his care factor, which is superior. You know, I think we’ve got a tough kid that, that not only the organization can identify with, but the fans…We have to remember he’s 22, you know, so you could, there’s a lot of 22-year-olds playing college basketball right now, so there’s still some growth there.

And while I think Gordon is a very hard worker, you know, I think working smarter. I think Gordon is too hard on himself at times, and so over time I think he’ll lighten up and not be his worst critic and then I think you’ll see some more dynamic and flamboyant play.

We want the grind and the grit and the toughness that we identify with, you know, those blocks on the break, and leveling a guy off defensively, and making a deflection. You want to have that defensively, but offensively, you know, it’s a little bit like what we had in Manu [Ginobili], where you would have a little bit of heroic play like that.

And then offensively, we want him to turn to more of a performance mentality. And so, I think that’s within his capabilities. I think he knows what he needs to improve upon.

The plan seems to be to mold Hayward after Manu. I’m all for that, Manu is a legend of the game, IMO. But, even though I’m a big fan I just don’t know if Gordo has it in him, that aggressiveness, the “OK, I’m taking over” attitude.

I can imagine Gordo in the Manu role, maybe a few years down the line and if he’s *the* vet or one of the main vets on the team. I think you can see a little more of that in him when he’s playing with the second unit than with the starters.

I don’t follow college hopes but hut looking at his college career might give us a hint. In his final college season he was Top 5 in his conference in scoring and rebounding. *shrug*